LQ photos from my phone

KeepCup and green tea at the train station.

 New takoyaki place at Market City. Freshly made to order. Really good. $8 for 6.

Charlie Lovett. Came in after class had a latte. Really good vibe to it. Shame only had my phone on me to take photos.

 Bumming around at uni.

Starbucks at Cockle Bay Wharf. I like the views it has but the atmosphere is, I don't know, kind of cold. 

 Seems like there were X-Factor auditions on this day (17th May 2012)

Paella for dinner. The whole dinner all up cost me almost $40. Didn't have that much on me and my friend had to pay part of it for me. Internet banked her the next day. Usually we go for Korean which is much cheaper once you divide the bill.

Anyhoo, just felt like blogging something. Exams are coming up so I don't know how present I'll be. But, it's my last exams! So, I'm going to try hard!

La Premiere, Hoyts, Entertainment Quarter

On Thursday night I attended the Nuffnang pre-screening of sci-fi flick Iron Sky at La Premiere at Hoyts, Entertainment Quarter.

After waiting awkwardly at Cinema Paris at the meeting time and place we met up with Kimberley (or is it Kimberly) from Hoyts. She was bright and friendly when taking us on a tour of  Hoyts and their La Premiere section. I've actually never been inside Hoyts at Entertainment Quarter and it's so nice and classy. Not like my local cinema. Why can't all cinemas have such a classy feel?

Some tidbits from the tour:

• La Premiere has a bar! Yep. That was important to me. They also have a menu and they can deliver the food to the cinema. Wonder how they find the person it's for in the dark? XD
• We saw studio/cinema 6. Most of the cinema has seats like a normal cinema. At the back though there's a smaller section of red seats with tables. 
• Seems like seeing film like old school style from actual prints will be a thing of the past. Films seem to be moving to a digital format for broadcast in a cinema. Though, I bet it'll come back like how instant cameras/polaroids are in right now. Just give the hipsters time!

Below are some photos taken with my friend's phone. I didn't bring my camera because I didn't and I should have and I regret it now ... XD

This is studio 12. This is where we watched the film. It seats about 36 people. Though that's a guess. Each row had 9 seats and there were 4 rows. So 36. Pretty intimate space. It'd be a great place to have an event for a birthday or something.

We got free popcorn and water. That Corona is paid for. $9.

It was quite a fun night out. I looked up the ticket prices for Men in Black 3 in 3D for La Premiere. $78 for 2 tickets plus glasses. It's $76 without the glasses. So works out roughly almost $40 per ticket. But that's for 3D maybe the 2D movies are differently priced. But you should check the website for prices because I'm a horrible blogger and I'm writing this from memory now!

I think the only movie I really badly want to see that would justify paying that money would be the upcoming Joss Whedon flick The Cabin in the Woods, if they were showing it in La Premiere. DON'T watch the trailer, is the advice I've been given. You're better off just watching the movie and being surprised because it's that good. Apparently the trailer may give too much stuff away! Maybe I'll just save and treat myself to it one day. XD

(This isn't an ad. I just wanted to blog about it. It was a really nice place XD)

KeepCup

I kept meaning to buy one after seeing honeyhype's post about them. Looking back on her post, I should have been braver with my colour choice. Ah, well. Next time.

I bought these around 5pm on Tuesday and they got here the following Monday. Pretty fast if you ignore the public holiday and the weekend. I wasn't expecting it to arrive on Monday.





You get to choose the colours for almost all of the parts. This is a medium sized cup which holds 340ml (I thought large might be too big?) and cost $14.00. Plus shipping this cup cost $20. Worth it, I think. Think of all the coffee cups you throw away!

I know that if you bring a cup to the coffee shop at my uni that they take 50 cents off the price of your coffee. I think. At least I remember seeing a blackboard sign saying so a few weeks ago. I'm hoping that cafes and coffee shops will let you have their coffee in the KeepCup. Has anyone tried bringing a cup (any cup or travel mug, etc) to a Starbucks or Gloria Jeans? Do they fill the cup for you?

Anyhoo, get your own KeepCup at their website!


(I'm not quite happy with the photos I took. The light in my house is just ... >.< Planning on building my own lightbox sometime soon. Adding that to my list of things to do XD)

Gifts

On the Saturday before my actual birthday my family threw me a party/dinner, which was lovely because they remembered and they thought about me. I spent it mostly looking after my little cousins, making sure they didn't get bored. They ended up playing the PS3 in my brother's room while I sat on the floor watching videos on my laptop. But family parties tend to be more for the grown ups. The children are just ... there. It's not a criticism, it's an observation and I'm totally fine with that XD

Anyhoo after dodging questions about my age (I cannot still, at all, say that I'm 25), I got gifts. Yay, gifts.



I'm pretty sure the only reason I got this was because it says Harajuku on it and they know I love Japan. XD




Scarf, body lotion and a PEN. I love a good pen. I've been wanting to buy a good pen. I'm so glad someone got me a PEN. No sarcasm. No lie. I was thinking that when I hopefully, eventually, get a job I'll need a good pen. I was seriously so happy when I got this.




Shirt and cardigan. Oh, this shirt. This face. XD






The beanie is so cute. I want to wear it out when the weather gets colder. Love the necklace. So pretty. And the tin. I love tins. And random white out tape. I have not used white out or liquid paper since high school. XD




And cheap wine.


I was going to say my immediate family didn't get me anything but my dad buys me things anyway and he paid for my birthday lunch. Plus he gives me money all the time. So, really. Gifts all year round. My brother gave me money to extend my Flickr pro account. So yay.

I did make a list of what I wanted but they're not things I really need. And I can live without them. They were just books, DVDs and CDs. And yeah, I don't need them. My everyday life is not worse off without it. Although, I really want a new lens for my DSLR. Well, I suppose there's always Christmas ... XD

Lazy

I've been on mid-sem break now for a week. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO. Everyone else is either at work or at uni. I HAVE NO ONE TO DO THINGS WITH. So, my mid-sem break has consisted mainly of sleeping. Catching up on sleep even though I know sleep doesn't work like that really.

Today is Thursday. I only have today and tomorrow left of my break and I have done NOTHING. I'm going to catch up on all the uni work I missed while trying to finish off other assessment tasks. Do the demo L's test until I get nothing wrong. Yes, I do not drive or even have my L's. I can't wrap my head around it. I just can't.

I was going to clean my room so I can't even use my desk. My desk is currently just a place where things are stacked. My desk that I use to do uni work and internet things is the dining table. Yep.

Been such a homebody ...

Anyhoo, I did go out yesterday.



Long stretch of road to nowhere, really.

I watched Iron Man 2 and Captain America in preparation for watching The Avengers sometime before Monday. Possibly on my lonesome. Everyone stop being so busy! Makes me feel so ... lazy in comparison. XD

Light bulbs

Because my friend accidentally bought 100 of these instead of 10. It lights up in various different colours. The bulb is about the size of my thumb. It's not a regular sized bulb, if you were thinking that. Good for clubbing at night time or just being out at night. She gave me one for free and she's like "only if you wear it and blog and tweet about it!" Apparently these were everywhere like last year. I don't remember seeing them EVER. XD





She has a stall at Glebe Markets on Saturdays. She sells necklaces, pendants, earrings and bracelets. It's near the female toilets if you want to drop by!

Iron Sky

Iron Sky is a sci-fi comedy film set in the near future of 2018 (yeah, I think it's pretty close XD) about Nazis who established a military base on the moon after World World II and they're back to wage war with the Earth. It'll be in Australian cinemas May 10, 2012.

Check out the trailer!



I love sci-fi and going by the trailer it seems like it'll be a whole bunch of fun to watch!

You can see Iron Sky at your nearest Hoyts Cinema. Mine's Hoyts Broadway. Well, it's not my nearest but I frequent the city so much it might as well be! Don’t forget to check out their Xtremescreen, La Premiere and IMAX!

Happy viewing!

Happy Easter!

I shall be making my way through these chocolates as I do my assignment on the remainder of this Easter break. I'm so on holiday mode already when I shouldn't be.

Hope you had a great Easter break! Still contemplating whether I should go to the Easter Show this year. Didn't get tickets to the final day of the Harry Potter exhibition. All sold out! But I am going to the Super Junior concert in May even though I'm not that big of a fan XD

Takoyaki, Friday night markets

Blog feels neglected. Lots of things going on at the same time and I have poor time management.

But anyway ...

A couple of weeks ago before watching The Hunger Games a few friends and I went to the night markets in Chinatown for some food. I didn't take a lot of photos. The thing I wanted to eat the most were these takoyaki. I always walk by, look at the line and get discouraged but it doesn't take long. There's prawn, octopus and vegetable fillings at various prices, which I don't quite remember right now. You order, get a ticket and wait at the other side for your food. There's different types of sauces and wasabi available that you can add.





Yes, that is us eating night market food on the tables outside the McDonald's near the Entertainment Centre.

And I probably won't be blogging 'til after my last assessment in like 2 weeks but I wanted to blog something ... XD

KuraKura, Haymarket

On Friday night a bunch of friends and I decided to head over, last minute, to the new KuraKura at Haymarket. It's right above Kura the small, almost always busy Japanese restaurant.




We got there past 7pm. No reservation. There were 9 nine of us and we were told we had to wait 30 minutes for a table. Which was fine. So we stood and chatted for a bit. Didn't feel like 30 minutes. Our rationale for staying and waiting was that most places would make you wait at this time on a Friday night. When a table big enough freed up we were led to a section in a back that caters for larger groups of diners.

And, as you know, I'm a terrible blogger. Names of dishes escape me ...



Gyoza, 10 pieces, $10.50
By the by, anyone know where you can get cheap/cheaper gyoza? I just want to pig out on gyoza and beer one day.



Mentaiko udon, $9.80
Apparently, according to a friend, it tasted very mentaiko-ish. However, maybe due to the alcohol I had already consumed, it tasted like creamy pasta to me. I couldn't really taste the mentaiko flavour nor the spiciness that the menu indicated with the picture of a chilli next to the dish on the menu.


Aburi salmon sushi
Which is one of my most favourite things ever.

On top of these there were other dishes ordered but I guess I didn't get around to taking photos of them on the night.



Drinks wise we order a bottle of umeshu for $25 since a friend, after coming back from spending 2 months in Japan, had gained a liking to it. Sake was ordered, as was umeshu and beer which came in a champagne glass.

There are no buttons on the table. Like to buzz the waiters/waitresses. So, if we wanted to order more we had to flag them down when they came to drop off the food or drinks. I guess, because it was busy, food came slowly than we would have liked but I was with a bunch of friends and chatting so time didn't feel that slow.

I would go again. Just to try all the other dishes that I didn't get to try yet!

• Find KuraKura at Shop 2, 76 Ultimo Road, Haymarket 2000.

Album

... otherwise known as another thing I bought. If you don't know, I have a Fuji Instax Wide Camera 210. I got it for Christmas a couple of years ago. So far I've been putting the photos into a normal sized album. They're loose in there and would fall out. So it was off to ebay I went to finally buy an album for them. This was $11-ish off ebay. Sent all the way from South Korea.

The package was rewrapped by Australia Post. I guess they opened to check it? I took it out of the plastic Australia Post wrap and the paper packaging was wet. I don't know what that's all about.

EDIT: oh, maybe the packaging was deteriorating and they wrapped it kindly for me?